


The Notebook(s)

by TheBritishGovernment



Series: 00Q Drabbles [8]
Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2635718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBritishGovernment/pseuds/TheBritishGovernment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond records his missions in notebooks to help fight his demons. Q just wishes he could help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Notebook(s)

Everyone knew that Double-O agents went through serious shit. Everyone from M to the interns doing filing in Accounting to the Queen herself. They all knew that Double-Os went to Hell and back for Queen and Country, but none of them really knew what Hell was like. That was an honor reserved for the agents themselves. 

Some of the agents had confidants to tell all of their secrets to. Some of them put the MI6 psychiatrists to good use. A few tried to keep the life to themselves, never letting it out of their heads, but it always ended the same way for those who did: extermination.

Bond chose none of those. He didn’t think that anyone was fit to know what he knew (after Vesper how was he supposed to trust another soul?). He still knew that the memories had to get out of his head and somewhere else, and chose to simply write it down. 

After a mission he could go through pen after pen writing down every wicked deed he committed and all of those that he did or didn’t manage to stop.

Sometimes it would only be a few pages of words with precise letters. Other times it would be an entire notebook full of crooked letters that ran together and was a mess of ink. On those pages there would be drops of alcohol, whichever kind he could find, making the pages wrinkle. 

Six years of service as a Double-0 and Bond had stacks of notebooks hidden in a safe in his wall. He didn’t allow anyone to see them; only he knew they existed. M had, but she was dead so what did that matter. M had known about his notebooks and the code to his safe just in case anything happened to him she could get them and burn them before anyone got the chance to read them. 

Incidentally the only time that something did happen to him, she hadn’t quite believed that he was gone (probably thought he was too stupid to die). She gave him back his notebooks before he went to Shanghai to track down the man trying to hurt her. She hadn’t promised that she didn’t read them, but she didn’t say anything other than the fact that he needed to invest in some binders or multiple subject notebooks. He never did.

The Silva incident filled two notebooks that were all written in his precise, sober handwriting. He wrote ever second of it down - from the moment that he found out that there was a certain drive that was in danger of being stolen to the moment that he got to MI6 and reported directly to Mallory that M was dead. He wrote down everything that he felt and all of his apologies to M without a single ounce of alcohol. 

He didn’t dare to drink. He couldn’t allow himself to escape from the pain that only he could be blamed for. He couldn’t allow himself to leave behind reality or dull the stabbing pain in his chest. He didn’t dare. No one asked about his sudden sobriety, not to his face anyway. Moneypenny asked Tanner under her breath as Bond left the room on his first day back to work. Tanner had answered very simply that Bond was punishing himself. And Bond felt that that must have been the right answer.

Slowly, he put himself back together and became James Bond, 007 again. The new Q kept a close eye on him the whole time, even if he refused to let anyone see that side of him, the side that worried about his agents. Bond liked that side of him.

It took even longer for Q to agree to have dinner with him (“You can’t deny your reputation, James.”). It was months of courting before Q finally agreed to have dinner with him. The end of their first date was a bit unorthodox, but probably the moment that Bond fell whole-heartedly in love with Q.

(“Do you want to come upstairs?” Q asked with a coy smile.

“Best not,” Bond said. 

Q smiled brightly at Bond and nodded. “Goodnight, James.”)

It worked well for months. Q never asked more of Bond than Bond could give and Bond never asked Q to be someone that he wasn’t. Q never asked about Bond’s missions, just thanked God that he was safe and then spent the night like it was the last on earth. 

It wasn’t until Q came over after work and knocked on the door, standing and waiting for Bond to answer the door that Bond thought that things might not be perfect. 

“Q, is something wrong?” Bond asked as he let Q into his flat.

“Yes,” Q answered flatly. “I can’t do it. I can’t lay in bed with you mapping out and memorizing every one of your scars without knowing. You keep everything bottled up and I can’t fix things I don’t know about. I can’t be with someone who won’t talk to me. I just can’t.” Q looked at the ground and his shoulders sagged slightly. “I’m sorry.” He turned to walk out the door before Bond stopped him.

“Q, please, wait. Just for a second,” Bond said desperately.

Q turned back to Bond and looked him in the eye. Bond looked panicked and if Q didn’t know better he would think that Bond’s eyes looked a little watery. 

“Just let me get something from my room.”

Q nodded once. 

Bond turned and went across the flat to his room. He moved all of his clothes to one side of his closet and unlocked the safe hidden behind the many suits. He pulled out the stack of notebooks and piled them in his arms, struggling to keep them balanced in his rush.

When he went back to the living room, Q was still standing next to the door with his jacket still on and ready to leave at any second. Bond walked towards him and tried to formulate exactly what he was going to say to the man.

“Q, these notebooks have the details of my missions, no matter how horrible, written in them. If you want to read them you can, they’re yours. Every sentence is true, but I need you to know it’s not pretty, and you probably won’t like me very much at the end,” Bond explained. He held the notebooks out to Q and waited for Q to make his decision. 

Q set his laptop bag on the floor and took the notebooks. They each had a range of dates written on the cover of them. He moved to Bond’s couch and set them down on the coffee table. He opened the first one and started reading. 

He kept reading while Bond ordered them food. And he kept reading while he ate. He read while Bond sat next to him and watched telly. He read even after Bond went to bed. He read until well into the night and partially into the morning. 

When he finally closed the last notebook, he stood up and went into Bond’s room. Bond stirred at the sound of Q opening his door and looked at Q as he sat up. There was a small amount of light coming from the living room, just enough for Q to see Bond’s face and for Bond to make out the silhouette of Q.

Q didn’t say anything as he stared at Bond. He knew that if he spoke his voice would crack and tears would start running down his face. As he stared at Bond he thought about what a wonder Bond’s very existence was. The fact that he could wake up every morning and go to work again after everything that Six had made him do was a miracle. Bond was a marvel and didn’t even know it. 

“Q?” Bond finally asked.

“I’m sorry,” Q finally said, and just like he knew it would, his voice cracked.

Bond sat up and leaned back against the headboard. He extended his arms towards Q invitingly. Q almost ran to Bond, but held himself back to just walking quickly. Q straddled Bond’s lap and hugged him, burring his face in Bond’s neck.

Tears started to flow from Q’s eyes as Bond held him tightly to his chest. 

“For what?”

“That you had to go through that,” Q mumbled into his neck. He pulled back enough to look Bond in the eye. “If you ever want to tell me about any of that you can, but if you don’t I won’t make you. I’m so sorry.” He buried his face in Bond’s neck again and hugged him tighter.

“The only reason I didn’t tell you was because I thought you wouldn’t love me,” Bond said quietly into Q’s hair. He hugged Q back and accepted the comfort that Q was trying to offer him.

Q pulled back and looked at Bond like he was crazy. “James, I do love you. I love you so _so_ much. How could you think that anything you’ve done would change that? I love you and that’s not going to change anytime soon. ” 

Bond stared at Q, stunned, in the low light. Suddenly, he moved forward and pressed a crushing kiss to Q’s lips. He didn’t tell Q that he loved him when they break apart. He didn’t whisper what every cell of his body was screaming. He wasn’t even sure that he could have, but he could feel it and he tried to put it all in the way he held Q against his chest and the way that he asked him not to leave when the sun rises. He knew that he couldn’t quite choke out those three words, but he could, and did, make sure that Q could feel them.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my beta reader [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen)


End file.
